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Ralph Mowery

In article ,
says...

As for the original poster, that silvery coating on typical stranded wire is
tin or solder, NOT aluminum. It is there mostly to make the wire
solderable, but also acts as a corrosion inhibitor.

The only aluminum wire is used as power lead-ins to houses, as it is much
cheaper than copper. They did use aluminum wire INSIDE houses in the US
around 1966-1968, and it burned a lot of houses down, due to the cold flow
of aluminum weakening the contact force.

Jon

I got some wire of 16 and 12 guage to use for 12 volt power wiring. It
may have been called speaker wire. A red and black pair.
The wire turned out to be aluminuim with a coating of copper.

I have seen some coax where the center conductor is aluminum with a
coating of copper, but this is for use at radio frequencies where the
skin effect is very much in effect.